WE FOUND LORENA very easily.
She was half lying against a tree trunk not far into the forest. Her nightgown was blackened and torn, her hair and one side of her face burned. I dismounted, and Garci held the reins while I went forward and knelt beside her. Lorena shrank away from me. Evening shadows were settling in the undergrowth. With the light behind me I suppose I looked like a menacing man approaching her.
‘Don’t fear, Lorena,’ I told her. ‘It is I, Zarita. Garci is here too. We have come to help you.’
‘The men,’ she said. ‘There are men in the house.’
‘They’ve gone,’ I assured her. I knelt down. ‘Where are you hurt?’
‘I came into the forest,’ she rambled feverishly. ‘I tried to hide. Is he dead, your father? It’s not my fault. He shouted to warn me. I begged for mercy. I thought the man was going to kill me but he let me go. I didn’t go far into the forest. I was afraid.’
‘It’s all right now,’ I said. ‘They’ve gone.’
Lorena groaned as she tried to rise, and fell back.
I put my arm under her shoulder. ‘Is your ankle broken? Your leg?’
‘The baby’ – she pointed to her stomach – ‘it’s earlier than it should be but I think the baby is coming.’
Garci ran back to find a cart while I tried to help Lorena sit up. She dug her nails into my arm and got herself halfway there, but then twisted round to kneel on all fours. She gasped. ‘There is something wrong. I’ve had these contractions for hours and the child does not move to begin its passage out of my body.’
‘My mama was in labour for two days and a night,’ I said.
‘I don’t want to hear about your mama!’ she said spitefully. ‘Tell me what is left of the house. Anything to take my mind off this pain.’
‘The house is . . . damaged.’
‘And my husband? Is he dead?’
‘My papa is . . .’ I hesitated. The promise I’d made as a novice to show charity in all things came into my mind and I tried to speak gently. ‘I am sorry to tell you that your husband is dead.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I saw him fall. He tried to warn me.’
Ah, so I had been right! Papa’s last act had been a noble one.
‘And I ran downstairs to him.’ Lorena began to cry in a piteous manner.
‘You were brave,’ I soothed her.
‘He called on me to barricade myself in my room.’
‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘Papa was trying to protect you and his unborn child.’
Lorena gave me a bitter smile. She looked as though she were about to say something, but just then Garci returned with Ardelia and Serafina. We manhandled Lorena into the cart and transported her, moaning, as fast as we could to the convent hospital.
Sister Maddalena took charge, pushing both my aunt and me from the room. ‘Make some infusion of raspberry,’ she said. ‘It helps a birth. Go on. To the kitchen with both of you. I’ll put a salve on her burns and prepare her for her childbed.’
Within minutes Maddalena joined us in the convent kitchen, her face serious. ‘The baby is lying across her belly,’ she said. ‘Also Lorena has begun to bleed heavily. It requires more skill than I have to deliver this child safely.’
‘Let us send for a doctor,’ I suggested.
‘We treat Plague victims and the dockside women who acquire various diseases through association with infected clients,’ Sister Maddalena informed me. ‘The town doctor will not come here.’
‘What can we do?’
‘I don’t know,’ my aunt replied.
‘Then who does know?’ I asked.
‘No one.’ Sister Maddalena blessed herself. ‘If it is God’s will—’
‘It is not God’s will that a mother and a child should die!’ I shouted. ‘I cannot and will not believe that.’
‘Hush, Zarita.’ My aunt laid her hand on my arm. ‘What you say sounds like blasphemy.’
I shook off her hand. ‘It cannot be the first time that this kind of thing has occurred. There must be someone who knows something more than we do about the complications of childbirth.’
The vivid recollections of Mama’s death were searing through me like labour pains of my own. Every time Lorena cried out, I heard again my own mother doing the same as she birthed the son who’d died. Even though it was nearly eighteen months ago, I vividly remembered how raw fear had fastened a hold on my mind. It was part of the reason I’d sent a message to Ramón to come and escort me to the church to light a candle. Cowardice had propelled me away from the house. When I thought of the events of that day, I regretted what I’d done. Had Mama asked for me as she lay dying, and I hadn’t been there?
I pressed my fingers to my temples. This mode of thinking was useless. I knew from past experience that it brought my mind down in a spiral of self-pity and defeated my spirit. I scolded myself – my time in the convent among the constant selfless acts of the sisters had helped me mature. I could not countenance internal self-absorption. I would not allow myself to think in this way.
‘Someone must have skills that we do not have,’ I declared.
Apart from the fat town doctor, what other doctors did I know? Only the one.
I ran to get my outdoor cloak from its hook in the hall, calling over my shoulder as I went, ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can. And I will bring a doctor with me.’